The bridge

The bridge was always there, right there, since the railway existed. My grandfather told me that the bridge used to be made of wrought iron and you could see the tracks and their sleepers if you stopped right below, but you had to be careful that there was just no traffic to see it properly. Now I know that during the day there are fewer trains, however every night there is a freight train that still goes through, and sounds the horn very loudly, surely to annoy the neighbours. Most days there is hardly ever anyone, especially at night. The railway bridge, it was recently renovated it seems, Rama told me that they made the new sides, it has two ravines of grasslands to the sides. The bridge is there where Boulogne Sur Mer street passes, a street half like a slide that goes from the Panamericana to route 197, joins Don Torcuato with Pacheco, working class neighbourhoods in the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, goes through the love hotels, those ephemeral accommodations in and around the Panamericana collector, through to the door of the humblest businesses, through the entrance to the more affluent closed neighborhoods where Rama tells me that those who live there play golf and for the old country houses that are now being demolished to build apartments in front, even fitted with ground floor parking. For me it’s kind of strange how those streets were designed, because just before crossing the bridge, arriving from the Panamericana, two other diagonal streets converge: Paul Groussac that follows bordering the railway and also Esquiú street, where there are several sheds and warehouses. So if the traffic lights do not work due to one of those power outages that hit us all the time, we get a great traffic problem. In addition to the buses, there are also many trucks that pass through that confluence of corners, because it is an area of small and medium-sized companies, there is a lot of traffic all the time, especially during the morning and afternoon, but at night everything calms down a little more. Under the bridge everything converges, people who run along just to beat age and attempt to reduce their overweight bellies, those who walk dogs to get away from home for a while with a good excuse, and there is even a police post, one of those who turn on a light at night, as if to make someone believe that there is control of something, but we all know they’re sleeping somewhere else. Rama and I lived each and every one of our 12 years of life playing around those corners, we stopped only to go to school in the morning and to eat something at home, when the old woman shouted that dinner was served and that the noodles were getting cold. Old Tota was always serving customers under the bridge, selling chipá in the early morning and sweet things in the afternoon to accompany the mate. She had her hair tied up with a scarf, a great bearing and a smile with few teeth, but we always got along well. She once told us half jokingly and half seriously that she took care of us from there, from her little stand, because she did the signs every day so that the darkness would not come out of her cave and eat us all. Rama laughed, half scared, but immediately Tota gave each of us a chipa and we were off running nibbling it, to dive into our next adventure. Behind of Old Tota’s little stall, against the wall of the bridge there were some graffiti, painted by hand or in aerosol, with symbols that looked like they were from a history book that we saw with Rama at school, in that class with the teacher Marta in which we saw pre-Columbian cultures and the teacher began to project some slides on the board. We looked at each other with Rama because we recognized several symbols, but when we asked the teacher she did not know what they meant, but that they had appeared in various ruins of old cities throughout South America. How those same symbols ended up on our Boulogne Sur Mer railway bridge was a mystery. Soon we were going to find out. And as often happens, it all started pretty fast. One afternoon of that hot January we lost Cholo, the neighbourhood dog, a very cross-breed dog, with black hair and white paws, he came and went to all the houses begging something to eat and drink, that he had for custom to chase some cars and motorcycles through the streets and try to nibble a piece, and if he bit a rubber or plastic part of a fender he would come back happy, wagging its tail indifferently, proud of his accomplishment. But that afternoon Cholo was no more. Rama and I we started looking for him, but there was no point, he did not appear anywhere. We stepped under the bridge and we asked old Tota if she had seen Cholo. She told us no, that it also seemed strange to her that Cholo hadn’t turned up to ask her for something to eat that day. Old Tota offered us a chipá each and we left, but I managed to see a strange shine in his eyes, for a second, like she was happy inside that we didn’t find Cholo. While we were leaving I nudged Rama and asked him if he had seen something strange with old Tota. He told me he didn’t, but he had seen that there was a new little graffiti, which seemed to have just been done, but that he did not pay attention to it attention because he was concentrating on the chipá. We did not find Cholo that day. The next day, María, the one from the house that has the kiosk selling sandwiches and beer on Esquiú asked us if we saw Susto, her cat. Susto was a black cat, feisty, with ears threadbare from various cat and dog battles. I never liked Susto, but he treated Rama well. Maria was heartbroken. Susto had never ran away, he always came back, often battered, but that night he did not return. Rama told me that I had to look for Susto, but there were already two strange disappearances in a short time. Who was going to worry about Cholo and Susto? The neighbours in general did not give much attention to such things, but many dogs that used to walk loose on the street suddenly appeared with their dog collars and many neighbors went out to walk them on leashes in the following days. Under the bridge, Old Tota watched the movement of the neighbourhood from a distance and out of the corner of her eye she saw the new symbol that had appeared on the wall. The paint was fresh, she had verified it that same morning. The darkness never rests, and its appetite is insatiable. The week after Susto’s disappearance came the heat wave. It was unbearable, and as always, the power also goes out. Just breathing burned the nose, and the heat bounced off the asphalt and the walls and we had to put a wet towel on the back of our necks so that it does not hit us with heat stroke, as my old lady said, you had to hydrate. As the refrigerator without power was a hell on a smaller scale, with Rama we went out to buy some bags of ice at the service station a couple of blocks from home. The ice packs burned our hands as we brought them home, but we had to run, because they were melting in the sun and heat. When we got home, the bags were emptied directly into a metal basin, where it was covered with trained trade with newsprint and magazines, and in between, some things from the fridge so that they can withstand the heat a bit and praying that the power will come back at some point. Yes ok, we were waiting all the time for the power to come back, we knew that with so much heat it would take time to come back. The afternoon turned into night, and the heat barely abated, not a breeze, and already trained, at home my old lady put the ladder and we took the mattresses to the terrace, right next to the water tank. I could hardly sleep, between the heat and the mosquito bites, it was a challenge to relax to sleep. The street looked quiet from the terrace, I peeked out a bit and saw that the bridge could be seen, a little illuminated by two lights from Boulogne Sur Mer that miraculously flickered, and the one from the police post, bluish and intermittent. But a small reflection on the underside of the bridge caught my attention. Something was flashing, but I couldn’t see clearly. And immediately I perceived a shadow of a person who scurries away fast, limping on one leg. I already knew who she was. Only one person from the neighborhood walked like this. Tomorrow I have to tell Rama. The next day I looked for Rama, I found him at the corner of Esquiú, leaning against the traffic light post, he was almost without sleep, all haggard, with the heat and the power outage they had started to lose all the food in the fridge. I told him about the shine on the bridge and that it was surely the old Tota, that she was up to something. Since it was Sunday, old Tota’s cart was not under the bridge, so we went to investigate. On one side of the bridge was a mural painted about the war in Malvinas, painted by pupils from a secondary school in the area. On the opposite side, where old Tota was usually doing chipás, there was nothing, just a medium white washed up coat of paint, surely a product of recent electoral campaigns, and in a little corner, behind where the cart is always parked, there were the rare symbols, but there were many more, and they were sparkling, like freshly painted. Rama touched them with a stick first and then rested his fingers and suddenly with a loud smack, he quickly pulled his hand out. He said that he got like an electrical shock when touching the wall. I told him he was a liar so I knocked on the wall and it did the same to me. We ran out through Esquiú and we didn’t stop until the door of Rama’s house. On the street there was his old woman, throwing some water on the sidewalk and Rama told him that he got electricity by touching the wall of the bridge. The old woman looked at him, laughed in his face and told him to go to washing his hands, she was going to put the noodles in the pot. Rama looked at me resigned and puffing, he went inside. I greeted him and also went home. There was a lot to think about. During the afternoon I went to look for Rama and told him that I wanted to visit the bridge, but later, when the night falls. I wanted to see if that flash would appear again or if old Tota would appear again. We agreed that after dinner we would meet on the bridge. Our adventure had got serious. Around nine at night I left home, the whole block was dark, the dim lights barely registering. The cicadas belted, the mosquitoes buzzed and a dog barked in the distance. The area was all still, expectant. I got to the traffic light that this time was blinking yellow, and I saw that there was no power in the whole area. Not even the police post showed signs of life. Against the traffic light post I saw Rama. I quickened my pace and asked him if he brought a flashlight. As a reply he lit up his face, and we laughed at how scared we were. We crossed towards the bridge and I could swear there was a buzz in the air, it didn’t come from mosquitoes, it was more deaf, hoarse, like a wind instrument playing a low note permanently. There was no one around the street, there were no cars, a bus went by, with its cacophony of noise from
brakes, pneumatic expulsion of air from the doors and a bit of cumbia from the driver’s radio and he left the street silent again. Rama and I got closer, the flashlight gave little light, but we could see that there was no new symbol on the wall, but as we got closer, the buzzing became a thud and began to increase in volume, and even to pulsate, as if there was a pumping heart above us. We were close to the wall and we could perceive a vibration, as if something was on the other side struggling to get out. I was already trembling with fear, I looked at Rama and my voice does not come out, but I want to ask him to run away. I hear something crawling in the street and we see like a fleeting flash the wall fluctuates and heard an animal moan. A mouse, or a rat, something little disappeared ahead of us. I didn’t get a good look, but I could have sworn there was a click of a tongue, as if someone had enjoyed something tasty. I could see beads of sweat on Rama’s forehead, but fear had us immobilised in front of the bridge wall, which was actually a gate for something to feed on. We heard attentively as the sound, that vibration would increase in volume again, and my fear would return to my throat. I see out of the corner of my eye that Rama takes a step forward, and he doesn’t get to say anything to me because something catches his waist and suddenly he has half a body embedded in the wall. Rama tries to get away, he twists, I try to grab his arms, I pull hard, I can’t scream,
I have no voice, I have no strength, I am losing my footing, suddenly a tug and Rama disappears, nothing was left, only the wall. I started hitting, kicking the wall, crying in anger, and the buzzing stopped. As it is turning off I hear some footsteps and I turn around, I see the silhouette of old Tota. her eyes were shining in the dark. She tells me that the darkness has to be fed so that it doesn’t swallow us all. she knows, she approaches as if to embrace me, I am immobile, stiff and my tears fall down my cheeks, getting my shirt wet. She hugs me and whispers in my ear that Rama is lost. and suddenly she hit me, throwing me against the wall, saying that I was lost too. I feel a pressure on my neck, my waist, my arms, something viscous passes through my legs, something dark surrounds me and I no longer feel anything more than darkness.